


The War Is Won (but the battle was lost)

by RavenGrey



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Battle of Five Armies, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Graphic descriptions of violence, Other, everyone dies who's supposed to die, it's mostly just sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 12:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1898511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenGrey/pseuds/RavenGrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s when the final orc falls, when the cries of war turn to screams of pain as the dead are tended and the dying cling to life, that Bilbo realizes that the war is won but the battle was lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War Is Won (but the battle was lost)

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like writing a sad thing. So, yeah, sad thing.

 

           It’s when the final orc falls, when the cries of war turn to screams of pain as the dead are tended and the dying cling to life, that Bilbo realizes that the war is won but the battle was lost.

         Thorin’s gasping, wet breaths fill the tent as his chest wound sucks. Fili and Kili lie on beds opposite, together even as they lay dying.

         Fili had been gutted while defending his wounded uncle, an orc blade across the stomach had seen his insides in his hand, the other still wrapped tight around his remaining sword. The orc had been felled seconds later.

         Miraculously, or perhaps unfortunately, the rent in his skin was the only damage he had received, so his death was slow in coming. The sight of his own intestines, slick with red, had been enough to steal his knees out from under him. Thorin had given a cry of anguish and rage and redoubled his efforts, even as the wound to his lung sucked horribly and he fought to breathe.

       Kili had turned at his uncle’s cry, stricken, as his brother’s knees gave out. Eyes locked with Fili’s, desperation in his heart as he turned to defend his brother; he was too slow to stop the gnarled, bloodied dagger from sliding, rough start-stop, over his undefended throat. The wound started deep and ended shallow, spanning half his throat.

        He had staggered a few stunned steps, towards Fili, and crumpled to the ground. Arterial blood had already soaked his coat of mail and tunic, his breaths rasping in his throat as he struggled to take them. A thick gurgle lost in the unforgiving heat of battle, an attempt to speak Fili’s name as his life blood ran freely down his chest and seeped into bloodied soil.

          Blood coated his lips as it bubbled up from his throat, ran down his chin and stained his dark stubble an unforgiving scarlet. The orc who’d landed the blow hadn’t been able to enjoy its victory for long, as Thorin turned his blade on any living orc in the circle around his fallen nephews. Fili and Kili joined the carpet of dead and dying on the ground, clinging to life and one another as the battle raged on around them.

         Thorin had defended them for as long as he was able, but battle is cruel and he lost them in the crush of it. Kili, young, vibrant Kili lies on his back, throat open in a sick parody of the smile that often lit his face. Fili is no better off, hatefully pale, blood crusted in his beard. His stomach is a raw mess of split flesh and red meat and just the barest hint of bone.

          There’s no sign of infection, another small, petty mercy. Same goes for Kili. Thorin’s wound is high up on his ribcage and a small thing, to have felled a king. An arrow of elven make that had gone astray in the frenzy and pierced his side, punching through chainmail and puncturing his lung. It is neither blood loss nor infection that is killing him.

           Blood has collected in his lung and he is slowly but surely drowning. The dwarven healers have refused elven aide and the King Under the Mountain and his heirs suffer for it. The gasps and gurgles and groans of misery are enough to churn Bilbo’s stomach, to make his heart ache with sorrow and his eyes sting with tears that his body refuses to shed. But he stays.

           He stays by their sides, holds their hands and washes the blood from cold skin as best he can as they cling to life by the barest threads. He stays even though most of the warriors turned healers look upon him with cold, baleful eyes. They occasionally spit curses at him under their breath in khuzdul. Even the healers that were healers to begin with don’t stop to tend Bilbo’s head wound.

           Not that Bilbo cares much, with his friends dying in front of him, ripped apart by orcs and the odd arrow, the bump on his head seems trite in the face of their wounds. The irony of that doesn’t escape Bilbo. It had to be an elven arrow.

           And now, ever hatefully stubborn, they deny the very help that could save their lives because an arrow went astray in battle. It can’t be the first time, and Bilbo can’t deny that it makes him sick, the jut of wood from Thorin’s skin. Surprising anger rages beneath his skin as their lives, more precious than any gem, slip by seconds at a time due to dwarven pride. He had tried to save them and by doing so had damned himself.

          And yet still, here lay someone’s sons, Dis’ children, held in death’s arms as she had once held them in hers. Here lay one of bravest, fiercest warriors and leaders Bilbo had ever had the honor of knowing, laid low by a single arrow.

          A sob catches in his throat, manifests itself as a tired, broken sound as blood leaks from around the line of dark stitches than span Kili’s pale, pale throat. Fili’s eyes tight with pain as he gives a piteous moan. Bilbo strokes his hand, kneeling in the dirt between Thorin and Fili.

          Balin limps into the tent sometime after, followed by Oin, long after the pain in Bilbo’s knees has fallen quiet. The scent of death that clings to him is overpowered by the miasma of blood and pain that hangs in the air inside the tent. He takes one look at Bilbo’s face, at the blood matting his dirty curls and orders everyone from the room coldly. Dwalin strides in a few seconds later, takes one look at Bilbo’s face and growls out a furious curse.

         Bilbo flinches, tries to make himself look smaller, guilt lashing down his spine and stinging his face. Dwalin approaches him like he would a spooked animal while Balin sees to Fili, who’s the worst off. He tends to Bilbo’s face with oddly gentle hands and Bilbo manages to only flinch at the first touch of Dwalin’s tattooed, calloused fingers as they probe his face. He swears lowly as he carefully scrubs at the scab of blood with wet cloth.

          “Concussed, I think.” Dwalin grunts, checking Bilbo’s eyes without touching “eyes ‘re unfocussed and his breathing’s off.”

          There’s more than Bilbo had thought, dried to his skin, and he feels woozy as his blood turns the water red. He frowns at it. And Balin tsks as he dresses Fili’s wounds.

          “My breathing is fine, thank you very much Mister Dwalin.” He tries to says crisply, but the words get slurred and he wobbles even though he’s sitting down.

          “Sure it is, Mister Baggins, jus’ fine.” Dwalin rumbles, and it’s oddly soothing, even though his forehead is stinging as Dwalin carefully rubs a thick, yellow paste into the cut.

          “What were they thinking,” Balin growls furiously, working over Fili with a look a deep concentration on his face as he tries to make heads or tails of Fili’s abdomen “leaving him, leaving all of you like this,” he glances over to makes sure Bilbo’s being cared for being throwing himself back into his work “I ought to wring their fool necks.”

           Oin checks Thorin’s wound, cleans it, and then moves on to check Kili’s stitches.

           “I tried.” Bilbo whimpers and it’s pathetic, the way his voice wobbles, he knows it but he can’t seem to stop as he tries to explain that they need elven help, they’d been offered elven help. “I tried to tell them.” He adds, eyes wide and pleading.

          “What’d you try to tell them Bilbo?” Dwalin asks calmly, voice even and shockingly soothing for someone covered in gore. The comforting pat of Dwalin’s huge hand brings tears stinging to his eyes and the run hot down his dirty cheeks.

          “The elves offered-” he sucks in a huge breath and scrubs furiously at the tears dripping down his face “they offered to help and they said—they said no.” Balin stills for a second and Bilbo barely resists the urge to scrunch himself back into his corner as Balin’s face goes from intent to thunderous.

          “Who said no, Bilbo?” He asks, voice deceptively calm. Bilbo mashes his lips together and looks at his blood-splattered, dirty feet. His da would faint if he ever saw the state his feet were in.

          “Lad.” Dwalin says sternly and Bilbo gives the answer to the spot of ground between his feet “The healers. Dain’s healers. They said-” he gives a sad little laugh and shakes his head to try and clear it.

           He bites down on a whimper and says quietly “Doesn’t really matter what they said. They sent away the elves and now they’re dying.” Something tears inside of him at the realization, something small, but so monumentally important that he feels like a different hobbit. Life has taught him in the bitterest way possible that your best isn’t always good enough.

            A few more hot tears slip down his cheeks and Dwalin feels a surge of rage as the hobbit who had saved countless lives with his selflessness tries to make himself smaller.

           “Yer not ta blame for this.” The huge dwarf says bluntly, looking Bilbo right in the eye as he tries to drive the message home. Balin slams down the bowl of salve he’d been carefully dabbing onto Kili’s rent throat and leaves in a flurry of blood-stained mail and robes. Bilbo flinches without meaning to and stares blankly at the gash on Dwalin’s shoulder. Dwalin sighs, and it rumbles through his great barrel chest and Bilbo almost swears he can feel it, and pats his head gently.

            “Get some rest, burglar, they’re not goin’ anywhere and yer about ta drop.” He sounds more exhausted, beaten down, than Bilbo has ever heard him sound. That does nothing to stop the fierce surge of protectiveness he feels at the thought of leaving them alone or the way he shakes his head despite the way his world tilts. Bilbo’s mouth is set in a grim line.

             Dwalin respects the tear-streaked, battered creature more in those few moments than he did on the carrock after the hobbit had saved Thorin. “Alright lad, alright, ye can stay, just try and rest a bit or Balin’ll have my head.” He relents, exhaustion clear in each line of his face.

            Bilbo favors him with a small smile and Dwalin gives him one back, just the vaguest twitch of his lips. Bilbo wonders if his face is going to crack from the strain of it. “Thank you.” He says, and means it, before collapsing between Fili and Kili’s bed. Dwalin takes up a post by the tent flap, hands never straying from his weapons as he guards his princes and his king.

             Bilbo’s not sure when he starts, but he sings to them, very quietly. He sings to them the songs of his childhood, of the gentle hills of the Shire, of comfort and warmth and peace. The songs his mother had crooned to him as he had fallen to sleep. The songs she had murmured into his hair after a night terror. The songs of warm summer days and pleasantly brisk autumns and chill winters spent inside by a warm hearth.

            He sings songs of hope and joy and he falls quiet when Balin returns 2 hours later with an entourage of elves and the Elven king himself. Bilbo feels a shiver of the same fear he’d felt every time an elf had passed to close in the dark of the Mirkwood’s dungeons.

            “Master Baggins,” surprise shows briefly on his smooth face and then he recovers, striding calmly into the room and approaching Bilbo “I am pleased to see that you survived the battle.” Every dwarf present tenses, hands going to blades as they move to block Thranduil’s path. The elves respond in kind, bristling with quiet lethality. He swallows around the raw scrape in his throat, eyebrows drawing together as whatever pain his voice had managed to subdue returns full-force to Fili and Kili’s faces.

            Kili makes a pained whimpering sound and Bilbo holds his hand all the more tightly. He clears his throat quietly, and it’s loud in the deadly silence of the tent, and says evenly “I am pleased to have survived the battle, your Highness.” One side of Thranduil’s mouth slips up and he finishes crossing the tent, stopping in front of Bilbo, eyes on the hobbit and not the wounded that lay on either side of him.

            “Although I see you did not escape unscathed.” He murmurs, reaching out and very carefully brushing his fingertips over the deep cut on Bilbo’s forehead. Bilbo feels very small as he looks up at Thranduil.

             “Perhaps not, but I’ll take a head wound over death any given day.” Bilbo says with a tired, brittle smile. “I suppose that makes you a wise creature, Master Hobbit.” Thranduil muses, plucking the broken arrow shaft from the table that holds the medicines with graceful, slender fingers. He twirls the broken shaft so the feathers dance and considers the best way to remove the arrow head from the dwarves’ chest without killing him.

           “Can you heal him or not?” Balin asks bluntly, still hovering protectively. Dwalin puts himself between Bilbo and the elf, thick arms crossed. Thranduil levels a vaguely amused look his way. “I can only try.” Thranduil says with disinterest, handing the arrow to the elf on his right. Bilbo would be furious with the elves’ lack of care if he weren’t bone-tired and weaving dangerously with exhaustion.

           Thorin groans in his uneasy sleep and tries to roll over onto his side, aggravated by Thranduil’s voice. The resulting gush of blood flows over his lips and stains his beard thickly as Balin rushes forward to right him before he can drown himself. Bilbo’s throat clenches hard as Thorin coughs wetly, eyelids fluttering as he struggles to regain consciousness.

             Balin pours a few gulps of sleeping draught into his red-stained mouth to keep him under and barely keeps from glaring.

            Thranduil lowers his hand and the elves that had started forward return to their spots on either side of the tent flap. Dain’s healers are still bristling with hostility and Bilbo really wishes they’d leave. He strokes his thumb over Fili’s blood-stained skin, doesn’t flinch as Fili’s blunt nails dig into skin and leave little bloody half-moons on his hand. He doesn’t even register the grinding pain of Kili clutching his hand hard enough to bruise as a rising tide of desperation washes over him.

            His heart is breaking, like it had on the battlements when Thorin had dangled him over the edge, and his desperation shows in the way he clings to their hands. “Please, Lord Thranduil, if there is anything to be done-” his voice breaks and he takes a breath to steady himself “I beg of you.”

            Thranduil considers him for a nerve-wracking minute, from his disheveled honey-curls to his bloodied bare feet. The attention makes Bilbo uncomfortable, but he stays still under the scrutiny.

          “We will do what we are able,” Thranduil says, looking down at Bilbo from under silvery lashes “for you and you alone.” Bilbo blinks owlishly, feels a wash of cool relief and again, the hot sting of tears as gratitude wells inside of him. Bilbo’s much too tired to try and figure out just what that means, but Dwalin snorts derisively and Balin looks distinctly uncomfortable.

            “Thank you.” Bilbo says, hoarse, but brutally sincere. A flicker of pity darts across one of the elven healer’s face, but she says nothing. Thranduil dips his head, eyes half-lidded as he accepts Bilbo’s gratitude.

             “Do not thank me yet, we haven’t even begun.” He says with a touch of amusement, gesturing to his guard. They move forward, lithe and graceful, to remove his overcoat, which is stained black with orc-blood. There’s a long, jagged scratch high up on his thigh.

            “You will clear the room and then we will begin.” He drawls imperiously, reaching up with an almost lazy air to tie his back with a bit of leather one the other elf hands him. The two dwarven healers cry out angrily in rough khuzdul and Balin silences them harshly. They file out, the two elves stepping easily to the side as the dwarves stomp from the room.

             Bilbo feels physically ill at the thought of leaving them, even for a moment, but he climbs shakily to his feet. Thranduil steadies him, a careful hand place on his upper arm to keep him from toppling over. “Easy now, wouldn’t want our hero keeling over.” Thranduil says, and Bilbo’s almost sure he’s teasing.

            Thranduil’s hand is big and Bilbo takes a second to marvel at the length of Thranduil’s fingers. “I most certainly wouldn’t.” Bilbo says primly, even though his ears are bright red with embarrassment. Balin shakes his head and offers Bilbo a hand. Bilbo takes it, letting Balin lead him from the tent, out into the aftermath of the battle. One of the elves, the sly eyed male, pats Bilbo on the head before he leaves.

            It’s oddly comforting and he offers him a hazy smile as he’s escorted from the tent, Balin and Dwalin on either side. Wounded lie on the ground, healers weaving in and out like frantic ants. The dead are laid out in uneven lies, away from the living. Thick, black smoke billows from the pyre, burning orc flesh emitting a greasy, noxious scent that has Bilbo’s empty stomach heaving.

           “We shouldn’ leave them alone with the weed-eaters.” Dwalin growls irritably, steadying Bilbo with a broad hand when he staggers.

           “Those were his terms.” Balin says sharply.

           “I still don’t like it.” The tattooed dwarf shakes his head in disgust.

            “You don’t have to like it, it’s the best hope they have.” Balin grunts back, limping on his left side as a man with half his arm sliced of is carried past.

           “Dain’s men-” Dwalin starts uneasily.

            “Can’t be trusted, ye know that, look at the state they left Bilbo in, look at the state they left FIli in. Dain’s alrigh’, but his men don’t think too highly of Bilbo and that makes them dangerous.” Dwalin makes an angry sound low in his throat and lets the subject rest as they weave through the chaos.

           They stop in front of plain brown tent and Bofur pokes his head out. He’s got a wicked bruise on his jaw and his eyes are unfocused. “Thank th’ gods, yer alive.” He murmurs happily, smiling at Bilbo. He pushes the tent flaps open wider and Bilbo can Bifur and Ori, all laid out with fairly serious wounds and resting.

          “Bilbo lad, get some rest.” Balin says kindly, patting his shoulder gently and urging him inside. He opens his mouth to object, but Balin cuts him off “You’ll do them no good like you are. We’ll wake you in an hour or two, after you get some rest.”

          Bilbo nods, feeling lost, and heads into the tent. He all but collapses and Bofur flops but onto the ground on his left while Ori curls up on his right. Bilbo slips into an uneasy, restless sleep between the two of them, Bifur humming something gruffly in Khuzdul as he presses himself against Bofur’s back.

 

*

 

         It’s agony, the first few days after Thranduil boots everyone from the tent, but Bilbo bears it. Somehow. The company, those not clinging precariously to life, try to keep him down that first day, keep him in bed, but he needs to do something.

          And if he’s being honest, he’s wounded, not in the conventional way, but in the way that eats at you from the inside, like acid. He knows he’s a traitor, it’s not exactly news, but the physical abuse is a little much.

          One of Dain’s men, a stout, angry looking dwarf with only one eye trips him as he’s running bandages between healers and he goes down hard. He scrapes his knees and a palm and his clean bandages scatter in the dirt. He’s heartened though, a tired sliver of thankfulness still alive somewhere inside of him, when a man helps him to his feet, grimacing at his strawberried knees.

          When an elf in a dark copper tunic kneels to help gather the bandages.

         When Dwalin, fierce and furious, materializes from the crowd of onlookers, dark anger on his face and the offending dwarf looks like he’s seriously regretting his life choices. It’s over fairly quickly.

          Mostly because Bilbo puts a stop to it before any blood other than his own is spilt. The elf nods at Bilbo, old eyes solemn and full of respect, and Bilbo feels flustered when the sleek elf kneels, dirtied bandages handed off to another to be boiled again, and cleans the dirt from Bilbo’s scraped knees.

         He murmurs a quiet thank you and finds himself surprised and just a little confused when the elf tucks a stray curl behind his ear. He opens his mouth to ask why every elf in his vicinity wants to touch his hair, but he’s too tired to care and the elf with warriors hands is side-stepping the glowering wall of muscle that is Dwalin. He leaves Bilbo with a shallow bow and slips back into the crowd, taller than most but still slinking through like he belongs there.

         It’s limited to the occasional hiss of ‘traitor’ in Khuzdul as he uses his knowledge of herbs to help with the wounded, but he’s taken to making an altogether rude hand gesture whenever the name-calling starts. If he were the same hobbit he had been so many months ago, he might have wilted under the strain, but now he thrives as much as he is able. He saves lives when he can, helps where he’s needed, and mourns the dead, the countless bodies of men that they can’t bury fast enough to keep from beginning to rot when he has time with brusque prayers thrown up to whoever may be listening.

         The dwarves lay their dead to rest in the catacombs of Erebor, where they belong, and the elves bury theirs, few though they are, beneath the great trees that skirt the lake. It’s 5 days before a female elf with dark, sad eyes finds amidst the ranks of healing, changing a man’s bandages and slathering burn ointment over his back. Bilbo knows in those few seconds when she meets his eye, the cool calm that resides there, too calm, and Bilbo knows.

 

*

 

         He’s too old, standing in a dim tent that reeks of death and shattered promises and too-sharp herbs, too old and they are too young, faces smooth in death, but lined with dirt and blood and he is too old.

         Dwalin’s arm around him, his face grim and set, so used to death and so strong in the face of it. Bilbo staggers free, makes it a few juddering steps and crumples in the middle of the tent, the silence of the dead in front of him, the howls of the living behind.

          They look almost peaceful, save for the bloodied grin that spans Kili’s throat and the mangled mess of Fili’s stomach. They look almost peaceful. Quiet and still and it tears at Bilbo, breaks him down and leaves him hollow and cold and heartsick.

          Thorin’s rattling breaths break the death-silence, desperate, shallow things that grate up and rasp out. But Fili and Kili are still. Still and beginning to cool. It’s wrong, so stunningly wrong that their lives, bright like stars, should be snuffed like this. But they are dead and he is too old.

 

 


End file.
